The consumer confidence indicator decreased in November, after two months of increases, while the economic climate indicator increased, the National Statistics Institute (INE) announced today.
According to the results of INE’s “Business and Consumer Surveys”, the consumer confidence indicator “decreased in November, after having increased in the previous two months”.
The economic climate indicator “increased in November, recovering the upward movement observed since April”.
The evolution of the consumer confidence indicator resulted from the negative contributions of the perspectives on the future evolution of the country’s economic situation, the financial situation of the household and the making of important purchases by families.
Conversely, opinions on the past evolution of the household’s financial situation made a positive contribution.
The INE details that the balance of consumer opinions about past price developments decreased in November, after having “increased significantly” in the previous month, while the balance of expectations about future price developments decreased between September and November, after having risen in the previous two months.
In November, confidence indicators increased in commerce, manufacturing and construction and public works, having decreased in services.
The trade confidence indicator has increased in the last five months, reflecting the positive contributions of all components: company activity perspectives, opinions on sales volume and assessments on stocks.
The confidence indicator in the manufacturing industry also increased in November, after having decreased in October, reflecting the positive contribution of opinions on the evolution of global demand and, “significantly, of production prospects in the last month”.
In turn, in construction and public works the indicator increased slightly in October and November, reflecting the positive contribution of employment prospects, while the component relating to assessments on the order book stabilized.
Conversely, the confidence in services indicator decreased in the last month, with negative contributions from assessments of the company’s activity and perspectives regarding the evolution of demand.
INE also states that the balance of responses to businesspeople’s expectations regarding the future evolution of sales prices increased in all sectors, from industry to commerce and services and, “significantly, in construction”.
In this edition of INE’s economic surveys, the information collection periods took place between the 3rd and 14th (working days) of November in the case of the consumer survey, with 1,168 responses obtained (telephone interviews), and between the 1st and 21st in the case of qualitative surveys to companies (‘webinq’), with 1,274 responses in the commerce sector, 645 responses in the construction sector, 1,455 responses in the industry sector and 1,402 responses in the services sector.